that n morning about what -- this morning about what spoke people are saying have been a series of setbacks. pay more in taxes and spending cuts are coming. that's what is going to happen if congress can't come to an agreement. it looks like we are getting to the edge of the -- closer to the edge of the fiscal cliff. you can wrap up the gambling then come home and watch "good morning maryland." beginning today, maryland live casino will open their doors at 8:00 a.m. and they will never shut again. 24/7 gambling. beginning on this thursday, december 27th. "good morning maryland." i'm charlie crowson. >> and i'm megan pringle. >> thank you for joining us on this thursday morning. we're going to head out live to the casino later on but in the meantime headed anywhere you need to know how the weather is going to be. here's meteorologist mike masco. >> you think linda is gambling this morning? >> absolutely. yes. >> 41 in town but outside the beltway. 36 timonium and bel air good morning to you. 35. it's a chilly morning and we do have a coastal flood advisory so fort mchenry tunnel just some minor flooding right now.

port deposit near havre de grace minor flooding. so just know if you live in an area prone to bay flooding you might want to move things the higher ground. the second story this morning will be the winds and it's a high wind advisory through the course of the afternoon. as winds could gust up to 40. perhaps maybe 350 miles an hour. so it's a raw ride out there for the rest of the morning. gusty winds and then yes, a weekend storm potential and this could bring some snow. we'll talk more about that come up in just a little bit. let's talk traffic and lauren cook over at the traffic plaza/center. how we doing out there? we have icy conditions and in fact the state highway administration is urging everyone to stay off the roads until the sun comes up around 7:25. you're taking a live look right now. route 50. but we are dealing with wednesday restriction visions across the bay bridge. use caution this morning traveling across any bridge. here's what 695 looks like just south of burning highway. you will want to take caution driving across that key bridge

this morning. reduce your speeds if at all possible. and as we check in and take a live look at the abc2 timesaver traffic drive times, no problems on the east side of the beltway. you're looking at just an 11 minute raid right now on the -- ride right now on the outer loop from 935 all the way up to 83. the west side will be nice and clear. just eight minutes on the outer loop from 795 down to 70. and we are dealing with a lot of icy conditions up in westminster. 795 though, free of delays it's going to take you ten minutes to travel southbound from westminster pike all the way down to the beltway. that's a look at your traffic. megan and charlie, over to you. cautiously optimistic. that's what doctors are saying about the treatment to former president george h.w. bush. he's in an intensive care unit at a houston hospital this morning. he was admitted sunday for persistent fever. that fever is what kept the president in the hospital during christmas and doctors have put him now on a liquids only diet. well, they have five days to come up with an agreement. the president and congress are now back in d.c. but that doesn't mean there's any hope for real hope of avoiding the

fiscal cliff. congressional officials say they don't have any significant strides to a compromise. it didn't happen during the long christmas break and there are no negotiations currently on the books. without an agreement, automatic tax increases for everyone and deep spending cuts specifically to defense will go into effect on january 1st. the main dispute remains over who are you going to tax and how much. three minutes after 6:00 right now. and get ready to gamble all hours of the night and day because at 8:00 this morning, maryland live casino will open their doors and they are going to stay open for 24 hours a day from now on. abc2 news linda so is live at the casino this morning with what we can expect. linda, good morning. >> reporter: hi, good morning. it all happens about two hours at 8:00 this morning. they will be opening the doors for good opening 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. and exciting day here it's never going to look like this with nobody here ever again. joining us this morning is the general manager here at maryland live casino rob norton. thank you for joining us. exciting day for you guys.

>> yes, good morning, very exciting! tell us what will be happening. 8:00 this morningment that will be it. the doors will never be looked again huh? >> that will be unlocking the doors for the last time which is kind of a fun thing to say. we get to go 24 hours and be able to take the excitement and fun all night long now. >> reporter: with the november referendum voters approved table games. can you give us a timeline and how soon? >> you'll actually start seeing changes on the floor in the early january. as we reshift and adjust the entire casino to make videotape for the table games. we hope to open in early spring. >> reporter: okay and what kind of games are retalking about and how many? >> we'll have over 100 of your typical vegas style games, 12. but also have poker games. you'll look at everything from blackjack to craps to roulette. so on and so forth. and then later, later on a little bit later on we'll have a -- you know world class poker

room that will be opening up with about 35 to 40 games. >> reporter: this really puts you on the competitive scale. you were mentioning before that the states around us that have gambling are open 24 hours doing this kind of puts you in line with the only casino in the state that will be doing this right now. right? >> well, i think -- i think some of the others are also going to go 24 hours this -- this holiday season. but we'll be the first one to go today. and this does put us in line with competing with west virginia and delaware and pennsylvania as they're all already 24 hours. >> reporter: wonderful. what does mean for jobs? are you still looking to hire people? >> we're still currently hiring and actually we're excited. the dolor school starts in a week and we have about 1,000 people enroled already into the dealer school and they are vying for about 800 more positions when table games start. >> reporter: real quickly, where can they do so? >> come to the website at www.jobsatmarylandlivecasino.co >> reporter: okay wonderful. thank you for joining us this morning and again we'll have much more when the doors open for good at 8:00 this morning.

and much more coming up in about 45 minutes. we're live at maryland live casino, linda so, abc2 news. oh along with allowing 24 hour casinos and table games, there are also new laws going into effect in the new yore. one of the biggest changes is same sex marriage will be allowed in our state. and there's also a new law allowing veterans to have their veterans status on the driver's license. another aimed at protecting children from id theft. parents can actually freeze their child's credit any time that they want. you sent gifts to the grief- stricken community in newtown connecticut. but they're deeply grateful they say for the gifts but can't handle the flood of donations. they're asking people to distribute gifts in their own towns in memory of these 26 victims. once they process the warehouses full of items, warehouses full, they'll then be able to determine best ways to help out. more than 200 teachers in utah are expected to get

concealed weapons training today. the state is seeking to arm more educators in the wake of the newtown crisis. they have since opened it up and hundreds of teachers signed up and advocates say teachers can react quicker in those few minutes after the incident. utah is among a few states allowing people to use concealed carry weapons in public schools. back here in howard county the joint task force on school safety wants to get feedback from the public. the group was established following the incident that happened in newtown, connecticut. so now parents can hear the county's plans to keep their skids safe in school -- kids safe in school and they're welcome to offer their own suggestions and and any question that they have. the forum is on tuesday, january 8th from 7:00 until 9:00 at night. it will be held at wild lake high school which is in columbia. seven minutes after 6:00 right now. $1million has been sent to the eastern shore to help the victims of hurricane sandy. the federal government continues to process requests for help.

the government is providing disaster aid to individuals in somerset county. the city of crisfield was particularly hit very hard by heavy flooding that damaged hundreds of homes and marylanders would also benefit from $6 billion disaster spending bill going through the u.s. senate right now. don't lose your cool. control your temper. simmer down. simmer down. you ever heard any of these? you have. >> i certainly have. and actually, i don't even need to listen to it it turns out. this morning health experts say it's healthy to get mad. that's right. >> that's great. so love it or hate it. we had some winter weather yesterday. we had a full array of weather yesterday. we weren't the only ones. we're going to take a look at the blast of winter and what it did to other communities. >> getting stranded at the airport stinks. and hundreds of people in texas who were in that situation but it really does help if your pilot is sympathetic. we're going to listen to what a captain told his passengers to ease their frustration. >> anger a healthy.

mike masco? >> there's the storm from yesterday. pulling off towards the north. here's the other storm. this could be a weekend threat. i'm meteorologist mike masco and we'll talk about that coming up. >> we are dealing with icy roadways across the region and wind restrictions here on route 350 at the bay bridge -- 50 at the bay bridge. in addition there's a crash on 695 in dundalk. i'll have all the details coming up on "good morning maryland." >> you're looking at a live picture of new york city's times square. the crystal ball there is going to be installed today for the new year's eve celebration. number 13 with doves because the theme this year? let there be peace. >> reporter: in today's techbytes, new social features are headed to netflix next year. congress passed the so-called netflix amendment to the protection act allowing customers of the giants to share viewing habits on facebook and other social networks. a key provision has been dropped by the senate quietly. the bill keeps the language that currently allows law

enforcement to read private e- mails without a warrant. meanwhile randy zuckerberg got a privacy lesson. the sister of facebook's founder got tripped up by the site's privacy policy and a family photo was shared publicly over twitter. a sprint salesman told a customer who wanted to buy an iphone that his fingers were too fat to buy a product and he needed is samsung instead. those are your -- a samsung instead. those are your techbytes, i'm mohammed lilo.

12 minutes after 6:00. thank you for joining us. this morning. storms in texas stranded hundreds of people. not allowing them the get no their christmas destinations and several american airline passengers said they were struck on the tarmac for more than three hours which actually would be a violation of federal

rules but the passengers did get some comfort in knowing that their pilot was fighting for them. >> i have called -- i made nor phone calls -- more phone calls than i know what to do with. i spent my last quarter to be honest with you. so it's -- beyond reproach. i have no -- no words to tell you that how sorry i am for all of this. it's way above our heads. and people that obviously -- in my humble opinion don't have a clue what they're doing. >> don't have a clue what they're doing. that's always comforting at the airport. well, that flight never left the gate and the passengers got to their destination but not until the next day. this is not a record amount for the city of buffalo, new york but still it's going to make driving difficult. snow plows are now clearing the roads as fast as they can but the flakes just keep on coming. now this is great for ski resorts and it was a great

chance for people to break out the snow boards and sleds and the skis. not too bad. we didn't get much here but check out pennsylvania. driving was so difficult on the roads, yeah the snow hadn't even cleared yet. you can see the cars stopped on the side obviously the best way to avoid accidents well, duh. stay off the roads. but if you're out there in the storm, you got to be careful and you need to drive especially slow. >> yeah you definitely have to be cautious out there because yesterday there were a lot of people who were slipping and sliding all over the place. >> yeah and mike you were talking about something like this could be coming our way again. >> yeah saturday. why is everybody freaking out? it didn't snow last year and everybody is kind of you know -- >> rusty. >> adjust to this. >> two years -- two years ago there wasn't that great accumulation either. there were a couple of inches maybe 3 to 6. >> down here and then of course 2009 but which we shall not talk about. >> do you have a number yet? >> we're thinking somewhere

around the 3 to 6-inch mark and we're going to work opinion it for the next 24 hours. here's the shot out to kent island right now and temperatures are into the 30s. it is a chilly morning out there. 37 with a wind at 13 making it feel like it's into the 20s in many locations. down to easton temperature around 37 degrees timonium and up to the north of the beltway inside cockeysville between 34, 35 degrees. so you get the deal. it's certainly a chilly morning out there. it's a high wind advisory for much of the afternoon. that's because we are expecting winds to gust to around 40 miles an hour and there's going to be a lot of clouds out there. so that will keep our temperatures down. 37 at lunchtime goes to 39 around the 2:00 hour. we'll flirt with 40 today. but it's going to be really tough to get there and especially to the north and wes of the city. where it will be into the middle 30s for much of your day. look at this storm system powerhouse storm even some lightning reported off of long island. this will push up to the canadian maritimes and a few clouds working in for tomorrow and here comes another system over the rockies right now.

this will dive into the gulf coast state and be off the carolina coastline by friday. does it stay close enough to give us a moderate snow accumulation? track one that could be about 6 inches of snow for the baltimore area. but further to the south and east minor accumulations but yet we'll see some snow out of it and again we'll fine tune the track through the course of today. mostly cloudy gusty winds. nice day tomorrow. blend of sunshine and clouds and a high of 40. over the weekend temperatures into the 30s. and we'll talk more about the forecast in just a little bit. let's get a check now of the abc2 timesaver traffic with lawn cook. yesterday's weather still impacting the commute. dealing with ice right now so definitely take it slow. the highway administration is actually urging everyone to stay off the roads until the sun comes up. we have a crash right now in dundalk it's on 695 right on the outer loop at eastern avenue. so definitely watch out for that. and we are dealing with a lot of winds right now. so be extra cautious traveling across the key bridge. as we check in and take a look just south of burning highway.

the bay bridge is also something else that you will want to watch out for. gusts clocking in between 30 and 39 miles per hour. definitely use caution traveling across any bridge or overpass. icy conditions are possible as well. you're taking a live look on the west side of the beltway at liberty road. traffic moving right along. no problems to report eight minutes right now on the outer loop from 795 down to 70. and as we take a look at other drive times, no delays on 95 in elkridge. it's going to take you just 12 minutes to get downtown. and the jfx also going to be clear of any delays whatsoever. a normal 11 minute ride right now traveling southbound from the beltway all the way down to fayette street. that's a look at your abc2 timesaver traffic. megan and charlie, over to you. the christian owners of the afts and crafts chain will have to make a tough choice. they need to comply with a federal health care law or face a daily $1 million fine beginning january 1st. the supreme court justice sotomayor denied a request to block part of the law that requires employee health care

plans to provide insurance coverage for the morning after pill and similar emergency contraception pills. lawyers for hobby lobby stores say the mandate violates religious beliefs of their owners. you were told not to lose your temper but it might be better for your health if you do. exhibiting self-restraint could have serious repercussions for physical and mental well-being. in a study people who specialized their -- internalized their anxiety suffered from an elevated pulse. during the course of time this can lead to high blood pressure and increase a person's risk of developing a wide range of conditions of heart disease and cancer. >> go ahead and get mad. noah. >> two words. holy moly. >> huh? >> holy moly. did you see this video? >> these are the words -- this is such a great story. what a christmas surprise. a wonderful moment all caught on camera. and it goes viral. tell you all about this coming up in just a bit. this is the story of the day.

>> this is also the story of the day. new house, sports car, smile island. we all have big dreams of hitting the jackpot. one woman did. when you ask her what she did with the money you're going to be shocked and inspired. excuse me, sir i'm gonna have to ask you to power down your little word game. i think your friends will understand. oh no, it's actually my geico app...see? ...i just uh paid my bill. did you really? from the plane? yeah, i can manage my policy, get roadside assistance, pretty much access geico 24/7.

sounds a little too good to be true sir. i'll believe that when pigs fly. ok, did she seriously just say that? geico. just click away with our free mobile app.

good morning, thank you for joining us. it is now time for caption this. where viewers send in photos. we post them on the abc2 facebook page and allow you to caption them. but today's photo comes straight from the producer megan knight. this is her cat enjoying some milk from a cereal bowl. how cute is this picture? we posted it on facebook and it's generated a lot of o comments one i -- of comments. sarah i think you should feed me this way every day. my human, can we arrange that? and vicky gray a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. i do need some photos to use later this week so e-mail yours to pix@wmar.com. or post it on my abc2 facebook page. that's today's caption this. megan and charlie, over to you.

6:22 and an east alabama christmas gift is now being treasured around the globe. take a look hat this viral video. -- at this viral video. >> we going to the game pop. we going to the game! [ laughter ] >> okay. this is not just any game. the pew carnal family christmas is now a -- buchanan family christmas is now a viral sensation. he slipped the tickets inside the hat. the big surprise is a lifelong fan. this is for his dad. lee ask his son have been season ticketholders 20 years for the tide and now they won't miss this one of the most special games. >> we knew he was going to cry you know. so i was going to video it anyway. i videoed it to share with some friends. >> he's wearing a bear bryant fedora. >> he's a fan. >> he is indeed a fan. roll tide! two million hits on youtube.

look at the hat. >> how great to see somebody so excited to get something and i love they can do it together. >> genuine happiness. all right, well for many people winning the lottery would bring you genuine happen up right? web a woman in hawaii -- when a woman in iowa hit the jackpot she barely thought of herself at all. >> one year later she's having one of her wishes granted. >> good for you, merry christmas. >> reporter: wednesday morning, the day after christmas, michelle bristol got to show off her new smile and thanked the staff that took care of the cost. >> now i have that beautiful smile. to give to somebody else. and i don't cover -- >> reporter: but this story doesn't start here at the dental center in cedar rapids. it starts a year ago a week before christmas when michelle won $30,000 in a scratchoff lottery ticket. she helped her foster sister and then went here to k-mart and paid off several lay iowa accounts and she didn't stop

there. -- layaway accounts. she didn't stop there. she also adopted families at the boys and girls club. >> we had three families left. how do you pick? it's that close to christmas. somebody might be left out. so we adopted all three. and only was close to the kids. >> reporter: michelle spent more than half the money on people she didn't even know. >> even though her husband might have been a little bit angry with her she gave away a significant chunk of that money to people less fortunate. >> reporter: even running out of money before she could work on her teeth. $10,000 worth of repairs. >> she fave away so much money and you just don't see that very often. it's very inspiring and it really made us all want to do whatever we could to give her something very special and kind of pay it forward. >> reporter: michelle came in to get her teeth fixed a lifelong dream her husband encouraged her to get done without telling her the dental center didn't charge her a dime. >> i think a new smile

basically. i hope she smiles more because of it. >> reporter: all smiles and all hugs at michelle made sure to thank. doing for her what she didn't think to do for herself. >> it's amazing, it's beautiful and nice. i will forever be grateful for everybody that pitched in. >> what a great story. >> a great story a year later to give back. everybody wants a deal and the malls certainly a place to get a deal. but this, this is absurd. >> yeah, fight at a mall all caught on camera. we're going to show you what happened when everything broke down. you see people running. many thought megan, many people thought they were running for their lives. we're back in a bit. it's time to change the way we clean.

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what was that? snow, ice, rain, we saw everything yesterday. but we were certainly not alone. >> they call themselves the church, hundreds of thousands of you say they are a hate group. the people who protest funerals with despicable signs they're getting protested themselves. toyota makes good on the disaster, they settle on the runaway cars. what they offered and how it was received. all that coming up on this thursday, december 27th. "good morning maryland." i'm charlie crowson. >> and i'm megan pringle, thank yo